Seminary Course — Nomology; The Kind Of Social Orders Biblical Christianity Creates and Sustains

Purpose: At the end of this course the student will have an understanding how beliefs concerning how the law functions ends up creating different social orders and peoples.

Main Texts

1.) Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition — Harold Berman
2.) Law and Revolution II: The Impact of the Protestant Reformations on the Western Legal Tradition — Harold Berman

Assignment — 30 page paper that demonstrates the student’s ability to recognize changes in Law codes and structures as identified with changes in worldviews. Give examples from the texts. Spend time delineating why
these shifts occur. Identify a shift in Law and Revolution subsequent to the Reformation. Tease out the implications of that change as Berman teases out the implications in the changes he notes.

Supplementary Texts

1.) Millennialism and Social Theory — Gary North

2.) Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism — Gary North

3.) The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism — John Witte Jr.

4.) Roots Of Western Culture — Herman Dooyeweerd

5.) The Twilight of Western Thought — Herman Dooyeweerd

6.) Lectures on Unbelief and Revolution — Groen Van Prinsterer

7.) Calvin: His Roots and Fruits — C. Gregg Singer

8.) The Genevan Reformation and the American Founding — David W. Hall

9.) Living in God’s Two Kingdoms: A Biblical Vision for Christianity and Culture — David Van Drunnen

Assignment

30 page paper demonstrating your understanding of how Van Drunnen is offering a different model for the relation of God’s Law and Social Order. Compare and Contrast Van Drunnen’s work with the other works.

Seminary Course — Nomology; It’s Place and Role in the Christian Faith

At conclusion of this study the student will have an understanding of the importance of the role of Nomology as a guide to life and as the means by which social orders are informed and regulated.

Main Texts

Institutes of Biblical Law, Vol. 1 — R. J. Rushdoony
Theonomy in Christian Ethics — Greg L. Bahnsen

Supplementary Texts

1.) By This Standard: The Authority of God’s Law Today — Greg Bahnsen
2.) The world under God’s law; criminal aspects of the welfare state — T. Robert Ingram
3.) What’s wrong with human rights — T. Robert Ingram
4.) Biblical Law — H. B. Clark
5.) The Grace of Law: A Study in Puritan Theology… Ernest F. Kevan
6.) Ethics & God’s Law: An Introduction to Theonomy Paperback – William O. Einwechter
7.) Law & Liberty — R. J. Rushdoony

8.) God and Politics: Four Views on the Reformation of Civil Government : Theonomy, Principled Pluralism, Christian America, National Confessionalism — Gary Scott Smith (Editor)

9.) The True Bounds of Christian Freedom — Samuel Bolton

Assignments

Main Texts

Write summary pages for each chapter. 7 page summary for each Bahnsen chapter. 3 page summary for Rushdoony chapter. Make sure and hit the essential point that is being driven at in each chapter and give examples of that main point from the text.

Supplementary Text

1.) No assignment here as this text will serve to the end of becoming increasing familiar with Bahnsen’s main text.

2.) 10 page paper demonstrating the consequence of scuttling God’s law in the public square

3.) 7 page paper demonstrating that the student has a handle on the dangers of human rights. In the paper the student should tease out the eventual effects of a social order based on human rights. In the paper the student should explain why it is that social orders must be first and foremost concerned about God’s rights.

4.) 10 page summary highlighting points of interest you found.

5.) 10 page paper summarizing the Puritan view of the role of the law per Kevan.

6.) 1 page summary of each chapter.

7.) 4 page summary of each chapter

8.) 10 page paper detailing the role of God’s law in each of the 4 views that are offered in Smith’s book

9.) 10 page paper comparing and contrasting Bolton’s view and role of the law as compared to Bahnsen’s view and role of the law.

Mike Horton and Zacharias Ursinus Contradicting One Another On Natural Law

Mike Horton of Escondido wrote,

“Positive law is grounded in natural law—the law of God known to the conscience of everyone as God’s image-bearer, even if the truth is suppressed in unrighteousness…. (N)one of us comes to general revelation neutrally. But remember that we are all made in God’s image, including rebels, and that the Spirit restrains wickedness and promotes justice by his common grace. When you offer good “general revelation” arguments, you’re not disengaging from the teachings of special revelation (Scripture).

But Ursinus in his Commentary on Heidelberg (p. 506) writes,

“Furthermore, although natural demonstrations teach nothing concerning God that is false, yet men, without the knowledge of God’s word, obtain nothing from them except false notions and conceptions of God; both because these demonstrations do not contain as much as is delivered in his word, and also because even those things which may be understood naturally, men, nevertheless, on account of innate corruption and blindness, receive and interpret falsely, and so corrupt it in various ways.”

Will the real Reformer please stand up.

And so as to ward off the inevitable naysayers who offer that Ursinus and Horton are not speaking of the same objects of knowledge allow me to offer that it is simply the case that if, as Ursinus offers, Natural Man cannot know God, then, as all meaning for all facts are found in their relation to God (Basic Van Til Presuppositionalism) then what Horton offers, by definition, cannot be true.

As Bahnsen was fond of saying, men may “know” things but they cannot account for their knowing. So… while Ursinus and Horton are not talking about the exact same thing (Knowing God {Ursinus}) vs. (Knowing reality {Horton}) the implications that I note are valid.

Of course fallen men always sneak stolen capital into their God hating worldview to get it off the ground but it is never done so in admission to knowing God. As such … they hold what they”know” of reality as a thief. It is theirs but it isn’t theirs. They know but they don’t know.

Seminary Course — Propaganda

Books Dealing with the how and why of Mass Manipulation. The goal of the course is to help the student understand why propaganda is used, the meaning of propaganda as a tool of manipulation, while giving the student the ability to recognize and identify propaganda. Further the Student will be able to explain how is it that propaganda is different than truth in the way it presents itself.

Main Texts

Jacques Ellul — Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes
Edward Bernays — Propaganda
Gustav LeBon — The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind

These three main texts will tell you

1.) The pervasiveness of Propaganda and its how it presents itself in a seemingly harmless way
2.) The technical means by which Propaganda is accomplished
3.) How Propaganda is advantaged by dealing with Crowds

Online Documentary

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/

Before reading any of the main text spend the 4 hours necessary to view the “Century of the Self.” This provides a good overview of what propaganda is and how it has been used in history.

After viewing the documentary read the main texts.

As reading the texts ask be prepared to look for the answer to the following questions

a.) Where is propaganda to be found
b.) What is the relation of propaganda to truth
c.) How does propaganda build a tapestry of false reality wherein people find meaning and definition of life
d.) Why does mass propaganda become easier to accomplish then propaganda on a person by person basis
e.) The names of the men who have been masters of propaganda
f.) How does propaganda change during war
g.) How does the individual arm themselves to detect propaganda
h.) What is the relation between truth as narrative and propaganda
i.) What is the role of public institutions and propaganda
j.) What are the consequences to the individual who lives contrary to culturally accepted propaganda
k.) Can propaganda be used to advance Biblical Christianity

Supplementary Texts

Daniel Boorstin — The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America
Neil Postman — Amusing Ourselves to Death
Neil Postman — Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
Neil Postman — The Disappearance of Childhood
Edith Efron — The News Twisters
Thomas Sowell — The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy
Marshall McLuhan — The Medium is the Massage
Michael Medved — Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture And The War on Tradition
Philip Knightly — The First Casualty: From the Crimea to Vietnam: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth Maker

The Student will write 15 page book reviews on the three main texts as well as a 30 page paper identifying and documenting propaganda in modern culture.

The Student will make chapter notes at the end of each Chapter of the books in the supplemental and then summarize the thrust of each book in their supplemental reading.

In the Supplemental Reading the student will be careful to be aware of how propaganda is transmitted in media, technology, education and politics.

Defining Deviance Down

The occurrence of Defining deviancy down as it manifests itself in a social order, happens when the social order standard is violated with such regularity that the inhabitants of the social order are forced to make a decision to either enforce the standard or to change the standard. As enforcing a standard that is routinely violated is almost impossible apart from draconian measures what typically happens is that the standard is changed. Once the standard is changed then a new definition of deviance is embraced, a standard that allows what was previously defined as deviance to be now normalized.

One reason that defining deviancy down works is because eventually there becomes a money interest that supports the new deviancy. The legalization of drugs finds a host of cottage industries that profit by the legalization and soat are willing to contribute money to politicians who will support the new deviancy. In such ways deviancy becomes the new standard.

The consequence of this is that those who refuse to embrace the new definition of deviancy will now be the ones who will be seen as “puritanical,” “mean,” “uncharitable,” and “bigoted.” Once deviancy is defined downward far enough those who refuse to accept the new definitions of deviance will become social outcasts and will suffer economic displacement. Defining deviancy downwards happens because the social order does not have an anchor that will not allow them to drift with the tide. The only place that anchor can be found is in God’s Law word. Disallow God’s Law word as the norm that norms all norms and the consequence will always be a “defining of deviancy down.”

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who popularized the phrase “Defining Deviancy Down” gives an example

“Consider the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. In 1929 in Chicago during Prohibition, four gangsters killed seven gangsters on February. The nation was shocked. The event became legend. It merits not one but two entries in the World Book Encyclopedia.”

Moynihan goes on to explain that in our current social order we experience a “St Valentine’s Day Massacre,” nearly daily and no one blinks. As a social order we have come to accept a higher level of deviancy.